PAC 2007 Activities

1. PAC 2007 Activities EAB Public Awareness Committee (PAC) Amy Bell, PAC Chair 02/17/2007 Universal City, CA, USA

2. Introduction • Associate Professor ECE at Virginia Tech • Signal processing and image processing • Husband: Sanjay Raman also an ECE professor (RFIC) • Two sons: 7 and 3 years old

3. Primary 2007 Activity • Joint New Initiative with WIE Increasing the Representation of Women in IEEE Fields of Interest

4. EAB-WIE New Initiative: Increasing the Representation of Women in ECE and CS • EAB-WIE New Initiative • Two year project: 2007-2008 • Total budget: $380,000 • Approved for funding in 2007 • Discovery-based projects for first-year ECE and CS students • Best teaching practices workshops for the ECE and CS classroom

5. New Initiative: Focus on High-Quality Undergraduate Education • IEEE will provide ECE and CS faculty with first-year, discovery-based, projects that focus on real-world problems whose solutions impact society • IEEE will provide ECE and CS faculty with online, self-study workshops on the best pedagogical techniques for the engineering/computer science classroom

6. Discovery-Based Projects • Novel: emphasis on contemporary, real-world technical projects where the benefit to society is explicitly addressed • Benefit: improve quality of undergraduate ECE and CS engineering education for allstudents; impact will be greater for students from under-represented groups

7. Example Projects • Power Engineering • Blackout Prevention—the Big Picture • Computer Systems (Hardware) • Energy-Efficient Tracking Devices for Container Security • Image Processing • Biomedical Tomographic Image Reconstruction • Computer Systems (Software) • Simulating the Motion of the Bacterium E. Coli • Microelectronics, Wireless Communications and Networking • Environmental Sensor Network for the Detection of Toxic Heavy Metals in Groundwater

8. Signal Processing: Arrhythmia Detection Algorithms for Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators • Heart controlled by electrical impulses that govern the contract-relax cycle • Arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat caused by disordered electrical activity • Person can faint, suffer chest pains, and even sudden death may occur • Heart can be converted back to a normal rhythm with an electrical shock • An implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) administers an electric shock to the heart; it is an effective treatment for people at high-risk • ICD must accurately and quickly detect when the rhythm becomes abnormal

9. Signal Processing Example (cont.) A normal heart rhythm (left) is described by the “PQRSTU” wave. A ventricular fibrillation arrhythmia occurs (right) when abnormal electrical activity upsets the heart’s normal contract-relax cycle.

10. Example (cont.) Hands-on project: the students will use Matlab to program and evaluate basic rate-based arrhythmia detection algorithms employed in ICDs • Evaluate their algorithms using real electrocardiograms • Learn some statistical performance measures like sensitivity Through their evaluation, the students will discover the impact of algorithm computational complexity on the real-time constraint that is critical to the ICD’s ability to save lives

11. Why Does IEEE Care? • “IEEE needs to better define its role in engineering education beyond its focus on outreach.” • “Too many industry managers do not recognize the value of IEEE.” From “IEEE Strategic Challenges”

12. 57th Intel International Science and Engineering Fair: 3 Grand Award Winners • 1,500 students from 47 countries competed for $4M (US) in scholarships • Each young woman will receive the distinguished Intel Foundation YoungScientistAward • Each award includes a $50,000 scholarship

13. Women’s Persistent Under-representation • <10% of BS engineering degrees awarded to women in Japan, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Austria • 19.5% in U.S. (2005, all BS engineering degrees) • 15% of all Electrical Engineering degrees • 12% of all Computer Engineering degrees • Enrollment in BS engineering is declining • Why?: • Few examples of how engineering helps people • Lack of faculty interest and involvement

14. Reasons IEEE Cares • Industry managers are very concerned about hiring enough technically proficient engineers • Women represent the largest untapped population for ECE and CS degrees • Women’s persistent under-representation adversely impacts our profession, our technological proficiency, and countries’ economic stability

15. Best Pedagogy Workshops: Topics from Research on Learning • Design course around core concepts • Employ real-world, contemporary applications (context) • Address student diversity: learning styles, background/preparation level, entering skills and knowledge, attitudes and expectations • Develop problem-solving skills through use of hands-on projects and case studies • Use collaborative learning techniques to help students work effectively on teams (one example: pair-programming) • Effective (contrasted with ineffective) assessment techniques • Foster community and create a supportive learning environment

16. Generating High-Quality Project and Workshop Submissions • Two-step, peer-reviewed, competitive selection process • Author award: • $5000 development grant • Honor—serve a term in the “IEEE Education Academy” • Recognition and promotion of work

17. Promoting Use of Projects and Workshops • High-quality, free, material for use in ECE/CS curriculum • Educators who use these products awarded a certificate of achievement • Educators would have access to other users’ experiences and results—thereby creating a virtual community

18. Evaluating Impact • Educators would “register” to access the projects and workshops • Educators given assessment tools to administer and report back on results • Primary impact on student outcomes: retention, satisfaction, and enrollment (all students, but expect greater impact on women)

19. How You Can Help • Help promote initiative generate many high quality project and workshop submissions • Promote use of projects and teaching workshop methods in undergraduate curriculum by IEEE members